'Can you go on webcam?'
It wasn't until the 12-year-old boy was on the webcam that he thought something was wrong and went to his mother to tell her all about his new friend, Jeffrey Goddard.
"I was in tears," their mother told The Province.
"You always hear the warnings to watch your kids on the Internet and I thought I was doing a good enough job by looking at their friends and checking up on them."
The boy's mother has had several sleepless nights recently since learning Goddard was charged on May 27 with a sex crime against a 14-year-old Abbotsford boy.
"I just thought, 'Oh my God, I should have trusted my gut instinct back then,'" she said. "If I had gone to the police then, then maybe this poor boy wouldn't have gone through this."
Goddard, 20, has been charged with invitation to sexual touching in connection to a separate incident. He was released on conditions, including restrictions on being around children and using the Internet -- his alleged gateway into contacting young boys in the Fraser Valley.
Abbotsford police first received a formal complaint about an adult posing on Facebook as a police officer, inviting young boys on a ride-along in a police vehicle, instructing them to meet him on the road and not to contact the police station.
They had also received reports dating to March that an older person was contacting teens online.
A further investigation led police to the 14-year-old and the allegations against Goddard, police say.
Investigators have since received "numerous" calls from concerned parents after news about Goddard's arrest broke last week, said spokesman Const. Ian MacDonald.
Officers are now looking into "more than a dozen" boys in their early to mid-teens they say Goddard was messaging and are trying to determine if he could be facing more charges, Mac-Donald said.
Police are investigating whether there were earlier incidents.
"Hopefully," said MacDonald, "there won't be this long legacy that would get uncovered after 10 years.
"I'm very certain there are a lot of teenage kids out there in Abbotsford nodding, going, 'Yep, I remember that guy,"' he added.
That was certainly the case for the twins and three of their male friends who had come to know Goddard over several months last year.
"Right away I kinda knew there was something weird about him because he would always be nervous," said one of the friends, Ryan, whose name has been changed to protect his identity.
"He tried to get me to do stuff for him all the time: 'Can you go on webcam? Can you come over?' And I would tell him I couldn't and he would ask me, 'Well, when can you?'"
Ryan claims Goddard, who went to school with his brother at one point, added him as a friend on Facebook last year. They didn't have any contact until Goddard allegedly offered to meet the 12-year-old to give him $300 for a used skateboard he was selling for $75. The boy simply saw it as a way to make some extra cash.
The group claims Goddard began to add them on Facebook -- using several different variations of his name -- and began chatting with them through messages and through a webcam where he never participated but simply watched. They allege he offered them money to appear in his "music videos" or "photo shoots" for his bands.
The Province has learned he also set up a Facebook group for H.D. Stafford Middle School parents, imploring them to add their children to the group.
"I had been trying to keep him away from my kids," the twins' mother said, adding she had told Goddard herself the boys wouldn't be appearing in any of his videos. "Some things were coming up here and there: He wanted to come to our house, he wanted the boys to meet him and go to Vancouver with him without any parents," she said.
"I thought maybe he was just a little bit off. Maybe he was 19 but really only thought like a 14-year-old. Maybe he's just an older kid who doesn't have any friends."
The lure of a borrowed Xbox was just too much for the boy last November. He agreed to meet Goddard at his house where he claims he gave him a Canucks jersey and other gear. While all contact with Goddard was cut off after the incident, he continued to attempt to reach the boy, he says.
Abbotsford country singer Kristal Barrett knows all about Goddard's persistence, who for two years she has considered to be an "extreme fan."
"He has been kind of known with my family, friends and co-workers," she told The Province.
"I don't really know him, I only know him because he came to one of my shows and became really obsessed after that," she said. "He would call me at work on a daily basis from the school phone. Sometimes it would be a couple of times a day."
Goddard allegedly would drop off handmade signs and gifts at the local radio station where Barrett works.
She claims he began texting her cellphone, allegedly posing as a client of the radio or as himself, asking her to meet for coffee.
He tried to befriend her friends on Facebook, took her photos to make fan pages and tribute videos, and even told students at his high school that they were a romantic item.
"I think he was trying to show off, that he was telling all his friends that he knew me and pretended that I was his best friend or girlfriend," Barrett said.
"There were times that I wanted to [call police] but he never threatened me. I never felt like my life was in danger or anything, but I felt very creeped out by him," she said.
"I thought, 'Well, at what point do I call the cops?"'
Goddard's contact with Barrett has been sporadic in the past few months, but she's hopeful that it will come to an end now that he could be facing jail time if convicted.
"It's a relief," she said.
"It puts you at ease because it's a little bit scary because I don't know what he's doing with my stuff and finding out info. He knows too much." kmercer@theprovince.com
© The Province 2010
